Athée Canadien
Ian
Ian holds a MSc in Physics and lives in Vancouver, BC. He is president of the BC Humanist Association. He grew up outside of Calgary before moving to Edmonton for his undergraduate degree in Engineering Physics at the UofA. While there he founded the UofA Atheists and Agnostics and was active in the Edmonton freethought and skeptical communities.
Homepage: http://ian.bushfield.ca
Posts by Ian
Time for secular political parties?
Aug 17th
Tonight, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. The first article discussed categories of political atheism, the second called for atheists to get political, and this article will outline my thoughts on starting an atheist political party.
In Canada at the provincial and federal levels, representatives are chosen in a local plurality system, where the person with the most votes wins. This system tends to entrench local two-party races, and very rarely a three-way race.
Therefore, any new party that hopes to be successful (at those levels) needs a very strong regional presence (like the Reform Party or Bloc Quebecois). Support of 10% of the electors for the country has failed to net the Green Party one single election win thus far.
With winning out of the question at the federal and provincial levels, there is still the opportunity to use a doomed party to bring issues to the stage that have not previously been heard. Most local election forums are willing to invite any and all candidates running, and will give them an equal stage with the front-runners.
This strategy could be very successful at bringing secular causes to the stage for one or two elections, but in the long run would be very costly and provide less exposure as we drifted into the obscurity like the Communist and Marxist-Leninist parties (no offence meant to them, I do have a soft spot for their passionate rhetoric).
The greatest chance for electoral success for a secular, rationalist party would most likely be at the local level. Several Canadian cities, including Vancouver, allow for local political parties to compete, while in other cities, parties often support their favoured candidates without the same recognition (i.e. an acronym on the ballot). Vancouver has the added advantage of electing its councillors at large, meaning that support can be drawn from the entire city, and doesn’t have to be focussed in any one region.
There are many initiatives at the local level for a secular party to pursue: specifically, the tax exemption for churches and promoting science and critical thinking in our schools. Even on the Vancouver Parks Board, a rationalist can stand for freedom of speech and assembly at local parks and community centres, where controversy is often banned.
Obscure parties run at the local level in Vancouver too. The Nude Garden and Work Less Party have for years run unsuccessful mayoral and council candidates.
However, I don’t think we need to aim so low in a city that is over 40% non-religious.
The difficulty here, I believe, is ensuring that a party, and its candidates, are not perceived as single-issue candidates. And with our movement’s diversity of political beliefs, it may be especially difficult to have a party that stands for reason and secularism and candidates who may have entirely different views outside of the party platform.
I think it is possible to run a party on secularism, and the Aussie’s have already beat us to it. I’ll be sure to let you know how the meeting goes though and what comes of it.
Why atheists need to be political
Aug 16th
Tomorrow, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. The first article discussed categories of political atheism, this article will seek to find their common ground and hopefully provide reasons to be active.
Even across the seemingly diverse groups that I mentioned last time, I believe that can find some ground.
Almost all active atheists are true democrats in that they reject totalitarian regimes. Democracy, despite its flaws, is regarded as the best system that we have come up with thus far, and as supporters of human reason, atheists are strong defenders of it.
Similarly, we generally support freedoms that do not infringe upon other beings. You can feel free to talk to yourself five times a day as long as you don’t kill someone who doesn’t.
Finally, we all generally oppose government endorsement of religion. Tax exemptions for churches whose sole mission is to proselytise is seen as an unfair advantage and special treatment for one belief.
Most atheists are also rationalists. They use reason and science to inform their worldview. To that end, atheist politics ought to be informed by rational arguments, and not special appeals to emotion or the supernatural.
When there is enough common ground between a large enough group of people, it is beneficial to form a political group to lobby for those shared goals. In some cases, this takes the form of non-partisan think-tanks that advocate certain systems, and in other cases it can take the shape of a political party that endorses candidates for election, and may try to form government. The direction to take is highly dependent on the arena, and sometimes multiple approaches are the most effective.
Hopefully the challenges to secularism aren’t that obscure that I need to point them out, but at the very least, skim a bit of Marci McDonald’s latest book The Armageddon Factor for some insight.
In the past few weeks we’ve observed that we have a government that distrusts statistics to the point where they want to cripple the census and build prisons for the vast numbers of unreported crimes, since actual crime rates are declining.
If that doesn’t really worry you, perhaps you should recall that our Minister of State for Science is a chiropractor who can’t tell you how old the Earth is or how all the animals got here (or maybe he can).
If we want these discussions to take place, we need to get political. No one is going to stand up and defend secular values for us.
What shape that action takes, lobbying, partisan involvement, or a new party, is still up for debate, but it is definitely time to get vocal.
Christopher diCarlo and Infidel Book Club
Aug 15th
I’m in the midst of a busy few days here in Vancouver. Last night Dr. Christopher diCarlo, philosopher and 2008 Canadian Humanist of the Year, and today was the inaugural CFI Vancouver book club, which featured a discussion about the book Infidel.
Christopher diCarlo
The talk last night was great and attended by about 50-60 people. Dr. diCarlo was as engaging and humorous as the talks I saw him give in Toronto for the CFI Canada conference that happened this past spring.
His talk began with a discussion about how earlier in his teaching career he confronted a Native Canadian student who disagreed with the notion that we are all African (meaning that we all descend from ancestors in Africa) in one of his critical thinking classes. The confrontation climaxed when diCarlo admitted that the science was right and his ancestors beliefs were not.
After the student teamed up with some other anti-evolutionist Christians, diCarlo’s academic career got into hot water, despite his reputation as one of Ontario’s top lecturers.
He has taken “We are all African” as a personal motto, and is now using it to challenge cherished beliefs (he even has t-shirts for sale with the quote on it). The remainder of his lecture thus focussed on the evidence for an African descent of humanity and the social ramifications of it.
The bit on social and political ramifications was definitely the most intriguing bit of his lecture. By stating that we are all African, diCarlo argues that racism and most ethnic conflicts are the result of a failure to understand this commonality. He admitted that he wasn’t so naive as to think that if everyone got evolution that no more wars would happen (there are always battles over resources, etc.), but he did suggest that most conflict arises from these unnecessary and superficial differences that we see.
I think you can read more of his thoughts on this through an article in Humanist Perspectives which is available online.
I was helping organize carpools to the reception, so I missed most of the Q&A (the video will be available eventually through CFI Canada’s YouTube page), but one highlight I heard was a discussion about what he called HUAS in one of his books. HUAS stands for head-up-ass-syndrome where the sufferer begins by sticking their fingers in their ears, then covers their eyes, then eventually bends so far over that his or her head is firmly up the anus. He then stated that sometimes we need to be a pain in the ass when we pull those people out, and for some reason they don’t really know shit.
After the Q&A we adjourned to a ticketed reception at Moose’s Down Under. About 25 people showed up for drinks and appetizers with Dr. diCarlo and his wife (who has a broken ankle from the giant goose statue in Wawa, Ontario).
Infidel book club
Eleven people showed up for our first book club today, including a few people who hadn’t been out to any events yet (except for the talk last night). We discussed Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Infidel (saving her new book Nomad for a few more months down the road after people have gotten through this one) for about an hour and a half.
The discussion was great and there were lots of questions about the level of assimilation that should be pushed on new immigrants and whether multiculturalism or the melting pot philosophy is more successful.
For many of us, this book was our first introduction into the Muslim world, and I think it shocked a lot of us out of a somewhat cultural relativistic attitude.
There was also a lot of frustration about the left-wing’s apologetics with regards to Islamic practices and it was suggested that many people are ignorant of the fact that honour killing and genital mutilations are happening at an alarming rate in their own backyard. There was also a suggestion that even though Hirsi Ali is working with the American Enterprise Institute, she is somewhat transcending the traditional left-right dichotomy and is attempting to focus a discussion on human rights.
We also discussed her tone in the book. Many were impressed by the level of objectivity she was able to bring to many traumatic experiences. We tossed around a few theories about this ability, some suggested her education helped while others thought she either learned to control her emotions either to cope with the trauma or to be taken seriously in a culture where women are especially viewed as irrational and overly-emotional.
While we generally agreed that the Islam she grew up in is repressive and morally reprehensible, we failed to reach a consensus as to whether we have the right to intervene in a foreign countries internal affairs, even if human rights are being abused. We all agreed that we cannot be quiet and should criticize these practices.
After the discussion there was some talk of recording future events and making a podcast out of the discussion for others who want to hear some thoughts on these books, or at least letting portions be used in existing podcasts.
Our next book will be The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss which we will discuss on Saturday, September 11 at The Grind Cafe again. After that we’ll do Marci McDonald’s The Armageddon Factor. The book club is tentatively scheduled for the second Saturday of the month for the foreseeable future.
Categories of atheist politics
Aug 14th
On Tuesday, I’m hosting a meeting to discuss the formation of a secular political party in Vancouver. To build some momentum for this and to get my ideas flowing, I have written a few pieces about the intersection of atheism and politics that I will be posting over the next week. This first article is on the most frequent views that atheists tend to hold.
I usually define atheism as a very minimalist philosophy. It is simply the disbelief in any supernatural deities. As such, ideas like political atheism should seem somewhat paradoxical. Believing or not believing in god has very little to do with general social, economic and foreign policy. Of course in the latter case, some use their belief to justify expansionist tactics.
However, if we use the New Atheist definition for atheism – a more skeptical and positive disbeliever, one who is good without god – we can start to identify common political trends.
Anecdotally, I have observed that there are about three rough categories that atheists fall into if you divide them by their political beliefs. Of course there’s some overlap and people who will never fit into a strict box, but nevertheless, there are the social democrats, the libertarians, and the apathetic. Naturally, there will be some contrarians who won’t fit into any of these labels, but we’ll ignore them for now (since it’s usually unwise to provoke a contrarian troll).
Now the apathetic are the easiest to define, but also the least homogenous. They generally do not care a lot about politics and leave those debates for other activists. The apathetic atheists range from complete disinterest to those who care but do not have the motivation.
The social democrats are your standard bleeding-heart liberal secular humanist. They are what the Christian Right are always blathering on about. They generally support an expansive and democratic government, with a strong welfare state. While generally supportive of personal liberties, some will be more hesitant in regards to hate crimes, while others reject any censorship of free speech. I consider myself a social democrat.
The smallest group, by my anecdotal estimation, is the libertarian crowd. By libertarian, I don’t just refer to supporters of personal liberty (freedom of speech, conscience, religion, etc.) but of the Randian objectivists who view government as an oppressive enemy which must be reigned in at all times. A subset of this group believes that personal liberty ought to trump all other considerations and that the only role for the state is to protect one’s rights to life, liberty and property. Others are less fundamental and just want to see smaller government.
Of course, these are just my observations. There is also a lot of overlap between the groups in regards to support of freedoms and democracy.
What do you call your brand of politics?
Hating the sin
Aug 13th
One of my early posts was about a local teenager who left her Presbyterian church because she was told she was not a good role model since she was gay.
Well, about a week ago, the Presbyterian Church in Canada got all defensive and announced that “the church does not limit the roles of its members on the basis of their sexual orientation.”
No, they didn’t say that they heart gay people, because they don’t.
They simply tried to say that this church shouldn’t have fired her for being gay.
Basically, it’s okay to tell her she’s going to hell, but don’t fire her, because that’s obvious discrimination, and that’s not very Christ-like.
Perhaps they failed to realize that the church in question didn’t fire young Tory, they just told her church policy. She quit on her own accord.
So again, I applaud Tory for standing up for what she believes in.
She’ll be much better off without being involved in an organization that condemns a major portion of her lifestyle.
The only appropriate response is laughter
Aug 13th
The Geogria Straight is one of the free weekly newspapers in Vancouver that is pretty well known in the local skeptics communities for being a bastion of woo. They’ve often had articles promoting homeopathy over vaccines.
But this latest cover just blew me away. And since I’ll cry if I don’t laugh and be obnoxious about this, bare with me.
The article is about a local nutjob who thinks he saw something spooky in the sky 11 years ago and is now running the BC UFO group. It’s also about a new book that catalogues a bunch of anecdotes from pilots and generals who think they saw something.
The author of the book admits most UFO sightings are terrestrial, or easily explainable things:
During her interview with the Straight, Kean pointed out that many things can be mistaken for a UFO. They include weather balloons, flares, planes flying in formation, secret military aircraft, birds reflecting sunlight, blimps, helicopters, and planets such as Venus and Mars, as well as meteors, meteorites, and numerous other naturally occurring events.
“Most UFO sightings are meaningless,” she said. “They really can be explained. We’re talking about a very specific group of sightings. Those are the cases in my book.”
She also emphasized that a UFO is merely an object that cannot be identified, and not necessarily an alien spacecraft.
Well that’s great, but when something isn’t easily explained, it must be god aliens!
She goes on about this and that case and wonders why such miraculous discoveries aren’t being reported by newspapers on the front pages.
Maybe it’s because you sound like a lunatic!
I’d honestly have more time to be fair and level minded about this, but after 60 years of supposed “sightings” all we have are anecdotes and blurry pictures.
It is now okay to simply laugh at these people.
For some reason in Vancouver, people openly mock creationists who try to sneak their lies into schools, and yet UFO and 9/11 conspiracy nuts get the front page.
At the end of the article they also quote a UBC astronomer, who, as a good scientist, admits:
“It does seem like there is a small set of UFO phenomena that are not explained yet,” Rosolowsky commented. “The nature of science is that because they’re not explained yet doesn’t mean that they can’t be explained. But at the same time, you don’t know.”
They also quote the chair of the (now defunct) BC Skeptics who “quips” and denies reports.
Great and balanced reporting.
Upcoming BC events
Aug 11th
I just thought I’d share some upcoming activities the heretics of BC may wish to partake in:
- Tomorrow the UBC Freethinkers are holding another instalment of their Breakfast of Champions series at the King’s Head Pub in Kitsilano (Vancouver) at 10am.
- Friday, August 13 at 7 PM CFI Vancouver is hosting Dr. Chris diCarlo for a lecture entitled “We are all African.”
- Saturday, August 14 at 1 PM will be the first edition of the Freethinkers Book Club, hosted by my partner and me, at The Grind Cafe in Vancouver. This month’s book is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel (next month is The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss).
- I’ve heard rumours (but nothing confirmed) that CFI Okanagan (one of the newest centres) will be participating in Okanagan Pride this weekend.
- Sunday is Humanist breakfast time and the Victoria Secular Humanists will be meeting (as usual) starting at 8-8:30 am (that’s right) at the Cedar Hill Golf Course in Saanich. The BC Humanists get to sleep in a bit more and meet at 9:30 am at the Oakridge Seniors Centre in Vancouver.
- On Tuesday, August 17 I’m hosting a planning meeting for a potential Vancouver Secular Party or lobby group at 6 PM at The Railway Club downtown.
- Just after that meeting will be a Vancouver Skeptics in the Pub, co-hosted by Cafe Scientifique. The talk starts at 7:30 PM and will be followed by discussion and drinks.
- Finally, there’s a CFI Cafe Inquiry planned for August 21 at SFU Harbour Centre room 1600 at 1 PM.
I hope to see some readers out to some of these events and stay tuned for more, Tarek Fatah, Harriet Hall, and Greta Christina are all confirmed to come to Vancouver in the next few months and there will be plenty to do.
Superstitious British Columbia?
Aug 10th
CFI Canada executive director Justin Trottier is suggesting that BC change its official slogan from “Super, Natural” to “Superstitious” in light of recent talks by Deepak Chopra, Sylvia Browne and James Van Praagh. Granted, all three are serious quacks and are quick to liberate a credulous person’s money from them, and granted Justin missed out on mentioning self-proclaimed guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, but none of that really convinces me that the provincial government is endorsing woo.
This is the same BC where the Tarksheel Movement of Indian rationalists has recently held a $100,000 prize for astrologers to prove their worth. None attended.
This is the same BC where the BC Humanists, CFI Vancouver and the SFU Skeptics marched in pride parade to roaring applause.
This is the same BC where nones are more numerous than any other religious belief, including Protestants in general.
Perhaps my annoyance is just the suggestion that a slogan actually represents anything about a province.
Alberta’s slogan is Wild Rose Country. There’s Friendly Manitoba. Yukon is The Klondike. PEI is simply Confederation Bridge. Ontario is “Yours to Discover.” None are really that meaningful and are merely tourist traps at best.
At least with the BC government staying away from Justin’s proposed change we aren’t encouraging more quackery into the province.
But perhaps I’m just most annoyed that he got the slogan wrong. It’s the original Latin motto which translates to “splendor without diminishment.” “Super, Natural,” “Beautiful British Columbia,” and the new one “The Best Place on Earth” are merely tourist promotions and in the latter 2 cases, license plate mottos.
Time to quit Christianity
Aug 5th
There’s a story in The Province newspaper today about a 17-year old teenager who recently felt she had to quit her church.
Tory Inglis felt she was no longer welcome at the First Presbyterian Church in New Westminster (part of metro Vancouver) after they confronted her about a picture of her at the recent Pride celebrations.
Tory is a brave, young individual and it’s awesome to see her stand up herself, and it’s even better to see her parents stand with her.
It’s dangerous to hold too tightly on to any tradition. Growing up in that church probably meant a lot more to Tory than I will ever know (having never grown up in a church), and I’m sure she’s thinking that she will lose many friends in the process. If any tradition requires you to hate yourself, it’s not one worth keeping.
And Tory, if I may speak directly to you, don’t feel that you have to join another church this fall as you plan to. Take some time to discover yourself and your beliefs. Check out a number of different organizations and question everything. Try the BC Humanists or Centre for Inquiry Vancouver, as both of our groups marched together in the parade this year.
See, we’re a bunch of smiling, friendly people. :-)
Now stop worrying, and enjoy your life.
Should atheists oppose the census change?
Aug 4th
It seems everyone and their dog is opposing the Conservative government’s recent move to make the Canadian long-form census voluntary instead of mandatory (except the uber-libertarian Fraser Institute).
The basic story is this: Someone in the government (most rumours point to Prime Minister Stephen Harper directly) decided that forcing people to answer questions that help develop social policy (how many hospitals/roads to build etc), was overly invasive so they nixed it. But to improve the quality of the now biased data, they decided that a larger sample size (at an extra cost of $30 million) would solve all problems. Obviously, every statistician in the country recognized that when you throw more shit in a pile it won’t smell any better, but perhaps Harper didn’t learn basic statistics when he got his masters in economics.
Among the numerous groups opposing this change are many religious organizations, including Jews, evangelicals and many mainline Christians. So the question is: should atheist groups like CFI, FAC or Humanist Canada oppose the census change?
I think the arguments in favour are fairly obvious, this is a move that seemingly puts ideology ahead of reasons and science (things we like), and it’s important that we know the numbers and distributions of non-religious people in the country.
But many freethought leaders are afraid to get political. Confusing the need to be non-partisan to maintain charitable status with a need to be non-political. Yet, many of the organizations that have denounced the change are charities themselves, and such policy releases are common place.
Even the non-profit lobby group Canadian Secular Alliance hasn’t really said anything yet.
Of course, at this point, any release would feel like a “me too,” sort of announcement, joining the party much too late, but perhaps there’s a lesson to be learned here in the future.
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